The art of printing images with micro-fluid technology is relatively well known. A permanent or semi-permanent ejection head has access to a local or remote supply of fluid (ink). The fluid ejects from an ejection zone to a media in a pattern of pixels corresponding to images being printed. Over time, the fluid drops have become smaller for higher resolutions. The firing elements to energize ejections have correspondingly decreased in both size and spacing as have the thin-film layers embodying them in ejection chips.
Reductions of this type, however, have come at a cost of increased fragility to the chips. Smaller sizes, smaller spacing, etc., also translates into lesser structural area for assembly, such as having sufficient available space for bonding to other surfaces. In certain devices with 1800 dpi (dots-per-inch) imaging resolution, neighboring nozzles of chips require a separation distance of 28.2 μm. They accommodate flow feature “real estate” between the nozzles at a width of at least 11 μm. To get higher resolutions, flow feature width necessarily requires shrinking. However, shrinking too much impractically limits the amount of real estate available for adhesion and weakens mechanical strength of the nozzle covering.
Accordingly, a need exists to increase imaging resolution, but not at cost to strength or structural surfaces for bonding. The need extends not only to final assemblies, but to manufacturing processes. Additional benefits and alternatives are also sought when devising solutions.